{"id":84436,"date":"2020-03-27T03:29:09","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T02:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=12318"},"modified":"2020-03-27T03:29:09","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T02:29:09","slug":"isnt-renunciation-a-sign-of-frustration-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=84436","title":{"rendered":"Isn’t renunciation a sign of frustration?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy Chaitanya Charan das<\/strong><\/p>\n

Question<\/strong>: Doesn\u2019t renunciation indicate an absence of the will to keep fighting amidst frustration?<\/p>\n

Short Answer<\/strong>: Not necessarily. Renunciation can also be a sign of realization; it can indicate the presence of the insight that there is more to life than fighting futilely for perishable material pleasures.<\/p>\n

Detailed Answer:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Firstly, we need to recognize that the material eye and the spiritual eye don\u2019t see alike, as the Bhagavad-gita (2.69) confirms.<\/p>\n

For materialists, the journey of life has only one track: the track to material enjoyment. Life has no purpose higher than the enjoyment of material pleasures. So, for them, renunciation or the abandonment of the pursuit of material enjoyment implies a cessation of progress on the journey of life, a stagnation that reduces life to a purposeless emptiness.<\/p>\n

For spiritualists, however, the journey of life has two distinct tracks: the track to material enjoyment and the track to spiritual fulfillment. Every moment brings with it the challenge of choosing among these two tracks. The track to material enjoyment is a dead-end because everything material that one has achieved is lost at death. The track to spiritual fulfillment leads to destination eternity, where everything spiritual that one has achieved is conserved beyond death and cumulated to help one attain an eternal life of love with Krishna. Perceiving the long-term destination of both tracks makes clear the folly of the material track and the glory of the spiritual track. However, this long-term perception is often lost amidst the normal perceptions that dominate daily life. In normal perception, the material track appears alluring due to the promise of material enjoyment and the spiritual track appears forbidding due to the need to give up material enjoyment. This normal perception often pushes even spiritualists towards the material track of life, thereby making their progress on the spiritual track sporadic and erratic.<\/p>\n

When a promise of material enjoyment is frustrated, spiritualists see in that frustration a precious opportunity: the opportunity to use that specific experience to realize the generic scriptural declaration that all material enjoyment ends in misery (Bhagavad-gita 5.22). They cash in on the frustration (\u201cI didn\u2019t get the pleasure\u201d) and enrich themselves with the resulting renunciation (\u201cI don\u2019t want that pleasure; I have better things to do in life\u201d). Thus, the frustration of life\u2019s material track inspires them to focus on and accelerate their progress on life\u2019s spiritual track.<\/p>\n

When we live as materialists, cut off from life\u2019s spiritual track, we just can\u2019t comprehend the mentality of those who are no longer interested in progressing on life\u2019s material track. Consequently, the unidimensionality of our vision prompts us to conveniently label them as \u201cescapists\u201d or \u201cweaklings.\u201d Sadly, however, our unidimensional vision can\u2019t rescue us when we are ourselves battered by the frustrations inevitable on life\u2019s material track. We may even become victims of depression (\u201cI am good-for-nothing\u201d or \u201cpeople are evil\u201d or \u201cthe world is rotten\u201d) and seek solace in self-defeating indulgences like intoxication.<\/p>\n

If we fortunately open ourselves to Gita wisdom, we will realize that this depression is unnecessary and avoidable. We too can use life\u2019s reversals as learning experiences to redirect ourselves to life\u2019s spiritual track. If we can muster the willpower and the courage to thus change our life\u2019s compass, we will be surprised to discover that many of our fears about the spiritual track were unfounded. For example, we may have been held hostage by the stereotypical notion that life on the spiritual track requires one to give up all material pleasures. But we will be relieved, even delighted, to discover that many of life\u2019s pleasures can be relished better on the spiritual track of bhakti-yoga than on the material track: food, music, books, friends and relationships, for example<\/p>\n

Of course, bhakti-yoga does ask us to avoid the immoral material indulgences of meat-eating, gambling, intoxication and illicit sex because these imprison us in life\u2019s material track and blind us to life\u2019s spiritual track. However, when we get even the first installments of spiritual wisdom and experience, we start realizing that these indulgences are sources of not satisfaction, but agitation. With the practice of bhakti-yoga, we soon experience that we are much happier giving up those indulgences then we were while giving in to them. Once this renunciation awakens in our heart, then marching on life\u2019s spiritual track becomes easier and swifter.<\/p>\n

Then, we understand by our own experience that renunciation, far from being a deplorable lack of the will to fight for life\u2019s material pleasures, is a commendable presence of the wisdom to perceive and pursue life\u2019s noblest and highest joys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chaitanya Charan das<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t renunciation indicate an absence of the will to keep fighting amidst frustration? Not necessarily. Renunciation can also be a sign of realization; it can indicate the presence of the insight that there is more to life than fighting futilely for perishable material pleasures. Firstly, we need to recognize that the material eye and the spiritual eye don\u2019t see alike, as the Bhagavad-gita (2.69) confirms. For materialists, the journey of life has only one track: the track to material enjoyment. Life has no purpose higher than the enjoyment of material pleasures. So, for them, renunciation or the abandonment of the pursuit of material enjoyment implies a cessation of progress on the journey of life, a stagnation that reduces life to a purposeless emptiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}